Commontime

7digitalWhat we said:Four years might have passed since their last record, but Sunderland’s Brewis brothers have been anything but idle in the interim. First, David revived his School Of Language project, swiftly followed by Peter’s collaborative album with Paul Smith of Maximo Park, and then the pair reunited in 2015 to score an archive film about the UK’s herring fishing industry. Despite the duo’s prolific and thought-provoking output post-Plumb, this sixth LP doesn’t exactly suffer from a shortage of ideas, either. Drawing on influences as diverse as punk jazz pioneer James Chance, classic McCartney and ‘Frontin’-era Pharrell, Commontime contains enough structural quirks and melodic left-hand turns to keep the faithful satisfied, and big enough choruses to tempt new listeners.